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Dublin Murder Squad #1-6
Dublin Murder Squad Series Box Set
Titles in the box
In the Woods
The Likeness
Faithful Place
Broken Harbour
The Secret Place
The Trespasser
In the Woods
When he was twelve years old, Adam Ryan went playing in the woods with his two best friends. He never saw them again. Their bodies were never found, and Adam himself was discovered with his back pressed against an oak tree and his shoes filled with blood.
The Likeness
Still traumatised by her brush with a psychopath, Detective Cassie Maddox transfers out of the Murder squad and starts a relationship with fellow detective Sam O'Neill. When he calls her to the scene of his new case, she is shocked to find that the murdered girl is her double.
Faithful Place
The course of Frank Mackey's life was set by one defining moment when he was nineteen. The moment his girlfriend, Rosie Daly, failed to turn up for their rendezvous in Faithful Place, failed to run away with him to London as they had planned.
Broken Harbour
In Broken Harbour, a ghost estate outside Dublin - half-built, half-inhabited, half-abandoned - two children and their father are dead. The mother is on her way to intensive care. Scorcher Kennedy is given the case because he is the Murder squad's star detective.
The Secret Place
Even in her exclusive boarding school, in the graceful golden world that Stephen has always longed for, bad things happen and people have secrets. The previous year, Christopher Harper, from the neighbouring boys' school, was found murdered on the grounds.
The Trespasser
Being on the Dublin Murder squad is nothing like Detective Antoinette Conway dreamed. Her working life is a stream of thankless cases and harassment. Antoinette is tough, but she's getting close to the breaking point.
In the Woods
The Likeness
Faithful Place
Broken Harbour
The Secret Place
The Trespasser
In the Woods
When he was twelve years old, Adam Ryan went playing in the woods with his two best friends. He never saw them again. Their bodies were never found, and Adam himself was discovered with his back pressed against an oak tree and his shoes filled with blood.
The Likeness
Still traumatised by her brush with a psychopath, Detective Cassie Maddox transfers out of the Murder squad and starts a relationship with fellow detective Sam O'Neill. When he calls her to the scene of his new case, she is shocked to find that the murdered girl is her double.
Faithful Place
The course of Frank Mackey's life was set by one defining moment when he was nineteen. The moment his girlfriend, Rosie Daly, failed to turn up for their rendezvous in Faithful Place, failed to run away with him to London as they had planned.
Broken Harbour
In Broken Harbour, a ghost estate outside Dublin - half-built, half-inhabited, half-abandoned - two children and their father are dead. The mother is on her way to intensive care. Scorcher Kennedy is given the case because he is the Murder squad's star detective.
The Secret Place
Even in her exclusive boarding school, in the graceful golden world that Stephen has always longed for, bad things happen and people have secrets. The previous year, Christopher Harper, from the neighbouring boys' school, was found murdered on the grounds.
The Trespasser
Being on the Dublin Murder squad is nothing like Detective Antoinette Conway dreamed. Her working life is a stream of thankless cases and harassment. Antoinette is tough, but she's getting close to the breaking point.
Paperback
Published January 1, 2019
16 people are currently reading
2435 people want to read
About the author
Tana French
26 books30.8k followersTana French is the New York Times bestselling author of In the Woods, The Likeness, Faithful Place, Broken Harbor, The Secret Place, The Trespasser and The Witch Elm. Her books have won awards including the Edgar, Anthony, Macavity and Barry Awards, the Los Angeles Times Award for Best Mystery/Thriller, and the Irish Book Award for Crime Fiction. She lives in Dublin with her family.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
September 5, 2020
Read parts of LIKENESS twice and several chapters in FAITHFUL PLACE. Events are revealed that changes Frank's belief about what happened. What really happened is tangled with the neighborhood, family and Frank's new life as a police detective. I find some of her books laborous to read.
September 24, 2020
Loved this whole series! It was fun to get s snippet of a character in one book only for that character to be the main character of the next book. Each book is separate and each story was great!
March 29, 2024
Rating it this way since I read these last year and don’t remember specifically which ones I enjoyed most but the whole series overall was so fun and I loved how she pulled past characters and made them into the main POV in the next one. Each book was so different and I loved them. Likely will reread at some point and then can rate them as I go.
April 3, 2022
I listened to this series, rather than read it. I think if I had read it, it would have been hard to continue. The narrators did such a good job that it maintained my interest the entire time.
November 30, 2025
The Dublin Murder Squad series consists of 6 titles, written by Tana French.
Each book is a stand-alone title, yet all have a connection, a relationship, with one of the
others.The connections include the location - Dublin and the surrounding areas; the Murder Squad itself; and the detectives connected, at various times, to the Murder Squad.
The detectives involved in the series include Rob Ryan, Cassie Maddox, Frank Mackey,
Stephen Moran, Mick ‘Scorcher’ Kennedy and Antoinette Conway.
Every book, every story, is perfectly plotted, tense, psychologically and emotionally draining,
complex and quite ruthless, at times. Fascinating reading. Recommended reading. *****
Book #1 In the Woods. Detectives Rob Ryan and Cassie Maddox investigate a girl’s murder
in Dublin Woods where Rob Ryan survived a similar incident 20 years prior, unlocking
both the current case and his buried memories.
Book #2 The Likeness. A murdered woman’s uncanny resemblance to undercover cop,
Cassie Maddox, draws her back into a dangerous investigation, led by Frank Mackey,
of the victim’s identity.
Book #3 Faithful Place. Undercover cop, Frank Mackay, returns to his childhood home
after a suitcase belonging to his ex-girlfriend is found behind a fireplace in a deserted
building. The arrest is made by Stephen Moran.
Book #4 Broken Harbor. A detective, Mick ‘Scorcher’ Kennedy, investigates a triple
homicide in a luxury development and must confront his own troubled past.
Book #5 The Secret Place. Detectives Antoinette Conway and Stephen Moran investigate
the murder of a teenage boy at a ‘girls’ boarding school. The detectives have reopened the
case when a student provides a clue uncovering the dangerous underworld of teenage
girls.
Book #6 The Trespasser. Detectives Antoinette Conway and Stephen Moran are assigned
a case that turns out to be more complex than it appears.
Each book is a stand-alone title, yet all have a connection, a relationship, with one of the
others.The connections include the location - Dublin and the surrounding areas; the Murder Squad itself; and the detectives connected, at various times, to the Murder Squad.
The detectives involved in the series include Rob Ryan, Cassie Maddox, Frank Mackey,
Stephen Moran, Mick ‘Scorcher’ Kennedy and Antoinette Conway.
Every book, every story, is perfectly plotted, tense, psychologically and emotionally draining,
complex and quite ruthless, at times. Fascinating reading. Recommended reading. *****
Book #1 In the Woods. Detectives Rob Ryan and Cassie Maddox investigate a girl’s murder
in Dublin Woods where Rob Ryan survived a similar incident 20 years prior, unlocking
both the current case and his buried memories.
Book #2 The Likeness. A murdered woman’s uncanny resemblance to undercover cop,
Cassie Maddox, draws her back into a dangerous investigation, led by Frank Mackey,
of the victim’s identity.
Book #3 Faithful Place. Undercover cop, Frank Mackay, returns to his childhood home
after a suitcase belonging to his ex-girlfriend is found behind a fireplace in a deserted
building. The arrest is made by Stephen Moran.
Book #4 Broken Harbor. A detective, Mick ‘Scorcher’ Kennedy, investigates a triple
homicide in a luxury development and must confront his own troubled past.
Book #5 The Secret Place. Detectives Antoinette Conway and Stephen Moran investigate
the murder of a teenage boy at a ‘girls’ boarding school. The detectives have reopened the
case when a student provides a clue uncovering the dangerous underworld of teenage
girls.
Book #6 The Trespasser. Detectives Antoinette Conway and Stephen Moran are assigned
a case that turns out to be more complex than it appears.
May 5, 2021
Finished Faithful Place. Love Ms French’s books. This one is up to par.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 24, 2021
Great book! True page turner - you really couldn’t tell who did it.
November 21, 2021
This was such a good read for me!
January 15, 2023
Faithful Place is my favorite.
June 18, 2023
A story of young love crossed with serious domestic violence.
March 25, 2024
Book 1 - Started 10/18, finished 10/30/23.
Book 2 - started 11/8 or 11/9/23, finished 11/18/23
Book 3 - started 11/25/23, finished 12/5/23
Book 4 - started 12/14/23, finished 12/26/23
Book 5 - started 12/26/23, finished 1/9/24
Book 6 - started 3/13/24 or 3/14/24, finished 3/25/24
I wrote individual reviews with each of the books, rather than here. Will paste them in later. Overall, I will say that I ended up really liking the Squad, was happy to see repeat characters (even when I didn't like them at all at first, looking at you Frankie), and it reinforced my interest in Ireland-- but in a COMPLETELY different way. Seeing it as an underbelly city side with towns or villages, rather than the quintessential Americanized idealized version of Ireland's country towns with sheep and green hills, was great.
Book 1: This book was good, although I'm not sure why the woods featured so prominently. It seemed like detective/murder/ghost story in one, but I wasn't buying the latter. The book wasn't predictable, per se, but it was pretty obvious who the murderer (well, the instigator) was and why. I liked Cassie and Ryan -- right up until Ryan was a shite, which I think just shows how good an author French is . . . she made the main character have a huge flaw that showed people how messed up he really is and how much his life affected him. In other words, she was real about it.
Book 2: I think I liked this one better than the first. Cassie is great in this, and for the longest time I kept thinking maybe we'd find out that Lexie was really her twin. The setting of this was perfect, almost like Agatha Christie and one of her whodunits. I was good with how it ended with all the characters and it felt true to them all.
Book 3: This was excellent. The language alone really places you smack in Dublin. I didn't like Frank in book 2, but loved him in this one. Amazing to hear his life and backstory. This was a perfect telling of old crime, new crime, who is involved. You think you know then you don't know, then it all comes together perfectly and you realize it as Frank himself does. Makes you wonder who will be in book 4.
Book 4: This was just ok compared to the others. It started really strong and I could feel the creep/scare factor - but then it fizzled out from about the midway point to the end (after they catch the first suspect). At first I didn't want it to be a story about Scorcher (b/c of him in the last book) but was glad to get to know his side of things. So it was more the story itself I guess I didn't like as much. I can't even really put my finger on why, other than it just got weird and focused on mental health (which is fine, it's not that's bad to do but at the time it just felt out of nowhere) and the characters spiraled but I couldn't quite figure out why things were happening between characters the way they were. For example, the partners - why didn't they just talk, why the secrecy? They never really explain why that happened (or maybe they did and it wasn't satisfying). Anyway, it was just OK.
Book 5: This was ok. I love that the brought back Holly (and eventually her dad, Frank Mackey). This one is very different from the others in that the focus is most definitely not on the two detectives solving the case, although they do have chapters [the book alternates between the present investigation and a chronological past telling of what actually happened, but the latter is from the teenagers' point of view]. I liked the St Kilda girls' school environment, I liked the teen perspective, and the element of witchcraft that was brought in (but then never really used? I kept waiting to see if the murder was caused by an accidental use of their powers). I figured this book out within the first 25% of it, which is annoying. Usually prefer to be surprised. This time is was so obvious, including the 'why' this happened. It's not to say this was bad; it just was. Not one of the best of the series, and not the worst, either. I think if I had to go rank them in hindsight (leaving my review/rating as I did it when I finished the book), I'd say it goes in order from best to least favorite: 3, 2 or 5 (leaning towards 2?), 5 or 1 (leaning towards 5), 1 or 4 (leaning towards 4), 1.
Book 6: This was a good one. I was a bit over Antoinette's constant negativity although it was easy to see how she could be paranoid or think everyone's out to get her. French is good at creating these characters that are definitely flawed and dis-likeable, yet likeable all at the same time. I think the only one of her characters that wasn't flawed was Steve (in this and the last book).
Anyway, this was interesting, and I was pretty sure I figured it out very early on, but it was still good to see how it would end up (and no, even when you think you know who, you won't see how it plays out until the last few pages). I won't give more up about this so as to not inadvertently give anything away.
OK - Overall Favorites -- I think I liked them in this order (best to least favorite): 3, 2? 5?, 6, 2? 5?, 4, 1.
Book 2 - started 11/8 or 11/9/23, finished 11/18/23
Book 3 - started 11/25/23, finished 12/5/23
Book 4 - started 12/14/23, finished 12/26/23
Book 5 - started 12/26/23, finished 1/9/24
Book 6 - started 3/13/24 or 3/14/24, finished 3/25/24
I wrote individual reviews with each of the books, rather than here. Will paste them in later. Overall, I will say that I ended up really liking the Squad, was happy to see repeat characters (even when I didn't like them at all at first, looking at you Frankie), and it reinforced my interest in Ireland-- but in a COMPLETELY different way. Seeing it as an underbelly city side with towns or villages, rather than the quintessential Americanized idealized version of Ireland's country towns with sheep and green hills, was great.
Book 1: This book was good, although I'm not sure why the woods featured so prominently. It seemed like detective/murder/ghost story in one, but I wasn't buying the latter. The book wasn't predictable, per se, but it was pretty obvious who the murderer (well, the instigator) was and why. I liked Cassie and Ryan -- right up until Ryan was a shite, which I think just shows how good an author French is . . . she made the main character have a huge flaw that showed people how messed up he really is and how much his life affected him. In other words, she was real about it.
Book 2: I think I liked this one better than the first. Cassie is great in this, and for the longest time I kept thinking maybe we'd find out that Lexie was really her twin. The setting of this was perfect, almost like Agatha Christie and one of her whodunits. I was good with how it ended with all the characters and it felt true to them all.
Book 3: This was excellent. The language alone really places you smack in Dublin. I didn't like Frank in book 2, but loved him in this one. Amazing to hear his life and backstory. This was a perfect telling of old crime, new crime, who is involved. You think you know then you don't know, then it all comes together perfectly and you realize it as Frank himself does. Makes you wonder who will be in book 4.
Book 4: This was just ok compared to the others. It started really strong and I could feel the creep/scare factor - but then it fizzled out from about the midway point to the end (after they catch the first suspect). At first I didn't want it to be a story about Scorcher (b/c of him in the last book) but was glad to get to know his side of things. So it was more the story itself I guess I didn't like as much. I can't even really put my finger on why, other than it just got weird and focused on mental health (which is fine, it's not that's bad to do but at the time it just felt out of nowhere) and the characters spiraled but I couldn't quite figure out why things were happening between characters the way they were. For example, the partners - why didn't they just talk, why the secrecy? They never really explain why that happened (or maybe they did and it wasn't satisfying). Anyway, it was just OK.
Book 5: This was ok. I love that the brought back Holly (and eventually her dad, Frank Mackey). This one is very different from the others in that the focus is most definitely not on the two detectives solving the case, although they do have chapters [the book alternates between the present investigation and a chronological past telling of what actually happened, but the latter is from the teenagers' point of view]. I liked the St Kilda girls' school environment, I liked the teen perspective, and the element of witchcraft that was brought in (but then never really used? I kept waiting to see if the murder was caused by an accidental use of their powers). I figured this book out within the first 25% of it, which is annoying. Usually prefer to be surprised. This time is was so obvious, including the 'why' this happened. It's not to say this was bad; it just was. Not one of the best of the series, and not the worst, either. I think if I had to go rank them in hindsight (leaving my review/rating as I did it when I finished the book), I'd say it goes in order from best to least favorite: 3, 2 or 5 (leaning towards 2?), 5 or 1 (leaning towards 5), 1 or 4 (leaning towards 4), 1.
Book 6: This was a good one. I was a bit over Antoinette's constant negativity although it was easy to see how she could be paranoid or think everyone's out to get her. French is good at creating these characters that are definitely flawed and dis-likeable, yet likeable all at the same time. I think the only one of her characters that wasn't flawed was Steve (in this and the last book).
Anyway, this was interesting, and I was pretty sure I figured it out very early on, but it was still good to see how it would end up (and no, even when you think you know who, you won't see how it plays out until the last few pages). I won't give more up about this so as to not inadvertently give anything away.
OK - Overall Favorites -- I think I liked them in this order (best to least favorite): 3, 2? 5?, 6, 2? 5?, 4, 1.
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December 31, 2023The Faithful Place 12/2023
January 13, 2024
This is such a fabulous series.
February 6, 2024
I love this series so much! Been slowly reading these over a few years and I can’t believe it’s over. Each book is as good as the last, and each of the characters will stay with me ❤️
August 27, 2021
Too long, needed to get to the point
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews